


All This Night

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [7]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Era, Confessions, Costumes, Facial Shaving, First Time, Flirting, Frottage, Frustration, Genderqueer Character, Kissing, M/M, Neck Kissing, Outrageous Flirting, POV First Person, Polari, Seriously delayed, Shaving, Teasing, cross-dressing, delayed gratification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: Hand of cards finished, bread finished, Aramis staring into middle distance again, Porthos, longing to tug him back into the room, fed up with feeling like he somehow knows his friendslesswell than before, says, before he can stop himself: “You, er, earlier you said you’d kissed a man…”“Hmm? Oh, yes. Once. A while ago.”Well, he can’t leave it therenow, can he? “Do you, uh. Hmm. Care to share the tale?”***After the (many, varied) confessions ofNevertheless, Aramis is thoughtful (as well he might be), and Porthos wants to reconnect with his friend, so agrees to exchange the fuller story of one of his own confessions in future for the tale of how Aramis once kissed another man…A standalone story about temptation and masks… among other things.





	All This Night

“If you’ll excuse us,” says Constance to Porthos and Aramis.

“We have some business to take care of,” says d’Artagnan, aglow.

Athos half-bows to them.

And then they’re gone, taking all the sound and most of the light from the room, somehow. Aramis sits, elbow propped on the mess table under the shelf for cups, a very distant look in his eye.

There’s a lot to think about, truly; tonight’s game has raised some serious questions, prompted some memories that - happy or sad - may have better lain buried. No matter of that, they’re free now - the truth out there, taking care of business. Porthos sighs, rises, pokes the fire, adding another couple of small logs. Dusting his hands he sits, spots the remains of the bread, and pulls it towards him.

“Hark at the wind,” he says, between mouthfuls, hearing dark October sough across the chimney, rattle in the eaves.

After a while he says: “Do you fancy…?”

“Hmm?” Aramis barely stirs, his eyes only regaining the mildest form of focus.

“Er, a game of…”

“Oh, anything you like, old chap.” He sighs, stepping back into himself, unpropping his chin with what looks like a small reluctance, reaching to snag a small piece of bread for himself, popping it into his mouth and chewing absently.

“Right.”

Really, Fifteen is the only choice, so they take it in turns to deal, laying a few deniers and the occasional sou against the outcome. There’s an air of anticlimax between them, the grand wager having paid off all too well. Porthos feels the cold weight of the livre Aramis returned to him after the second part of it was revealed drag against him somehow.

Mother of God, thinks Porthos, they really did it. They… he shakes his head, loses sight of the game for a moment… they’re _lovers_. He’s less surprised than he thinks he probably should be about Athos and d’Artagnan - it fits with everything he’s been seeing lately. Their buzzing glow; the species of content more and more visible on Athos the closer he looks at his recent memories; the misery and wire-taut undercurrents when they were parted or had clearly quarrelled.

God’s balls - that time a few months ago when he thought that Athos was frantic for the King’s safety… It wasn’t, was it?

Shit.

Aramis wins that hand and they shuffle for another. What if, thinks Porthos, every time we thought he was out getting misery-pissed by himself, he was… with d’Artagnan? No. He cons over nights out over the last… how long has this… He shakes his head. This is ridiculous.

But his mind spirals around the notion, matching movement patterns as he’d do when staking out a suspected smuggling or forgery ring, looking for the gaps that mean… That mean… A darkened room, the pair of them, their near-matched heights twined together, lips dipping and pressing, hands tight on each other’s shoulders, waists, necks. Christ, that time he found them head-to-head, sniffling, red-faced in what looked like a wrestling pose in the stables after that business at Châtillon. After Constance had declared herself to d’Artagnan before the court and garrison.

Jesus.

And she. She’s. He shakes his head again. The Court of Miracles had plenty of that kind of thing, unashamed and pragmatic, and the court, of course, if you listen to even half the gossip, has many a noble with a spouse to one side and a lover to another but not… joined up, as it were…

Well, good for Constance.

Constance who had (or has) a married female lover, who kisses and controls both d’Artagnan and Athos - _Athos!_ \- with equal warmth and power.

He loses another hand and almost the last of his loose change, growls softly to himself and vows to focus harder as Aramis deals. He pushes the last portion of bread towards Aramis, who frowns slightly, then tears it slowly, punctiliously in half, then leaves it anyway.

 _He’s probably waiting for me to choose._ Right. He picks the piece closest to him and eats it in two bites, chasing it with wine, glowers at his hand, gestures for another card. Aramis smiles slightly, flips one towards him, and lifts the last morsel to his lips as his eyes flick over his hand, thoughts chasing themselves softly over his face. He deals himself another card, which causes him to hiss and push the pot to Porthos.

Hand finished, bread finished, Aramis staring into middle distance again, Porthos, longing to tug him back into the room, fed up with feeling like he somehow knows his friends _less_ well than before, says, before he can stop himself: “You, er, earlier you said you’d kissed a man…”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Once. A while ago.”

Well, he can’t leave it there _now_ , can he? “Do you, uh. Hmm. Care to share the tale?”

Aramis heaves a sigh - it is somewhere between happy and melancholy, thinks Porthos, and he’s unsure what to make of it, only that now is a time to stay quiet.

“Well, this is a night for it. Something in the manner of a last confession?”

Porthos gestures broadly. “If you like.”

He smiles at that. “Will you tell me one in return?”

“That… seems only fair.”

“Hmm. But I get to choose which, since you’ve picked this…”

“Again: fair.” He refuses to worry.

“Well, now.” He sniffs, clears his throat, takes a swallow of water. “I don’t know how well you know Orléans…” Porthos’s shrug indicates that he knows it well enough. “Have you ever heard of a place called Chanticleer?” Porthos shakes his head, mouth downturned. “Well, this would have been about six years ago…”

*  *  *

I hadn’t been with the Musketeers that long by that point. I’m sure you remember the difference between being an ordinary soldier and a Musketeer, and this was the first time I was carrying clandestine messages by myself. Orléans is a solid ride from Paris, so I was somewhat tired when I got into the city. I found my rendezvous point, memorised the routes, then found a cheap, quiet tavern, and slept for a few hours.

When I woke up I was restless - the nap had done me good, but I wanted more from the evening than just sitting and cleaning my weapons. After washing and grooming, I ate a meal I couldn’t remember if you paid me, and set out into the town. Orléans is quieter, more reserved than Paris - only slightly, but still, there’s a tension to it. Three years later, when I went again with Athos, it seemed a little more settled into itself. Or maybe that was just me.

I doubt he remembers it too clearly. You remember what he was like then.

Anyway, where there are people on edge, desperately trying to maintain control, I reasoned, there will be places catering to those who wish to unhitch themselves and run, ragged, into the sunrise. But what I was after - barely-articulated to myself, you understand - wasn’t to be found in dive bars. I know you and Athos favour - well, favour _ed_ in his case, if we can assume that his tastes have changed lately! - dark taverns where no-one sees anything if they can possibly help it, conversation is limited to _wotchoo want_ and _wotchoo lookinat_ , and you can always find gamblers and women as rough and cheap as the wine, but… well, that’s not me.

Well, quite.

It took a few goes until someone guided me towards Chanticleer - not exactly a salon gathering, and I already had a taste for them, even then, but I was never going to be able to get into one of those on my looks alone, uniform hidden in my saddlebags, false name clinging to me like a cheap smile.

Chanticleer was noisy - that was the first thing I noticed. Very, _very_ noisy. A band was scraping and blowing and banging away, and someone on a small stage on the far side of the room was, well, I’ll call it _shouting_ what appeared, once I gathered some of the words out of the din, to be a rather bawdy song. Definitely not a salon gathering. And I grinned. This could be exactly what I was after. Feeling a little unbalanced and exposed after being told to hand over my sword and more obvious dagger at the door, I made my way towards the bar.

The drinks were surprisingly diverse, though quite expensive - spirits seemed more the order of the day than wine, and there was only one beer. I took a red wine that nowadays I’d know for a decent one, but then only that it cost more than I was used to, and decided to wander around. If it didn’t suit me after all, I’d move on.

The crowd seemed equal parts there to be seen as to see, so, in that way, _exactly_ like a salon, except that it was darker, louder, all the colours more gaudy. As if everyone was playacting a society gathering. And the more I looked, the more it felt like everyone was in on the joke of that.

Several hands had already brushed me - arms, shoulders, once even a curve across my backside - and I found myself looking back at the latter touch, more astonished than flirtatious, which made the perpetrator laugh very heartily as she looked over her shoulder back at me, dark red lips parted, torso turning, head going back to expose a long, creamy throat before sailing on.

Smiling - all right, probably smirking - I made my way further into the crowd. And then it became clear that this was somewhere that didn’t just suggest or hint, didn’t just thrust and parry with words and glances. Mouths were locking, hands were stroking frankly across flanks, and some of the noise was… no… surely… was moans of delight. I felt myself flush, not half as sophisticated, as unshockable as I thought myself, even then.

A cheer went up among a group of revellers and I turned in time to see a young woman push a man into a seat, to further celebrations. I circled a little closer to the stage, eyes on the scene, realising that I might have to rewrite some of my assumptions. The seated party was soberly, almost severely dressed in tight black breeches, white shirt, glittering black waistcoat, fashionably long black doublet, white hose, and shiny black shoes, all topped off with a sharp, pale chin, soft mouth, blue eyes, and chin-length, straight, mid-brown hair. The pusher still stood, hands on hips, tight-curled hair gathered in an intricate series of braids, skin near as dark as yours, brother, clothed in a glorious flounce of gold and scarlet. I called her a young woman, and so she seemed, generous chest heaving, but I couldn’t be sure that the figure she advanced on, hoisting her skirts as she did so, was actually male after all. I peered closer, still on the move so as not to show too naïve an interest, and saw that, yes, this was another woman, pressed, straining, into that hard clothing, raising her fingers to the hips that advanced on her, watching brown hands gathering that wealth of fabric into a thigh-exposing lift as she raised a knee to sit astride the welcoming lap.

Blood thundered into my throat and face as she bent to kiss her, settling against her chest to further cheers, lips frank and smiling against each other.

It was at this point, of course, that I blundered right into someone trying to stride quickly from one side of the room to another, and my wine went flying. Right into them.

“Look what you’ve done you… _naffy oaf!_ ” A large, soft, now-dripping cloth bag was flung at my feet with a fine, dramatic gesture and a challenge of teeth and eyes.

“I’m truly sorry,” I said, and I was, “But,” I kept a look of polite puzzlement on my face, “there’s no real damage done,” trying to keep my voice as soothing as possible. That was difficult, given the volume of noise in that place. She… no… he… wait… Very short, dark hair; enormous, liquid brown eyes; beardless; pale; the mouth a dark, natural cupid’s bow; the voice contralto; I looked further down past a scarf and doublet to breeches and then back up, still confounded. This _person_ failed to be mollified, in any case.

They looked me up and down rapidly, with a sneer. “An expert, are you?” they demanded, not a little waspishly.

I decided that charm was my best escape route, spreading my arms and smiling. “At some things, certainly.”

Their eyes narrowed and they scanned me again, slower this time. This… was the kind of attention I felt I recognised. I was still, however… I felt some confusion, you understand. I still couldn’t tell… _Well, honestly_ , I found myself thinking, _does it matter?_ Charm is charm, after all…

“I don’t have time for this,” they snarled. “I can get the stain out of this, but I won’t have time to do everything else - unless your _expertise_ can offer me what I need…?”

I sighed, let my head hang a little, started digging for what little compensation I could offer in my pockets. “I’m an expert marksman, an accomplished swordsman,” they curled an ambiguous lip at that, “a field medic, a… an _inexpert_ poet, and…”

“What was that?” they asked, sharply.

“Which?”

They raised a perfect eyebrow. “Field med…?”

“Oh. Er, _medic_. I can tend wounds in an emergency. A surgeon,” I added, with a gesture, as if that might help.

Another eyebrow. “A surgeon.”

“Yes.”

“So a barber.”

“Well…”

They eyed my mouth and chin, reached a sudden pair of pale, slender fingers to run them softly across my moustache, down my beard. I confess I was rarely more astonished by anything in my life. Their nostrils flared and they stepped closer. I started feeling something like… danger? They were nearly a head shorter than me and I could feel their breath on my neck, smell their faint sweat and something a little like perfume.

“Do you shave yourself?” they asked softly, voice a little husky.

Striving for equanimity, I replied that I did.

They smiled slightly - a soft tilt of lips. “I’m guessing that soldiers can’t always afford the attentions of professionals in times of need…”

And suddenly we were back in a game I could play. Instead of asking how they knew my profession, I let a small smile gather on me in return. “Alas, we have to take ourselves in hand more often than we’d like. A soldier’s income being what it is…”

They smiled outright at this, a sparkle coalescing in their eyes, then they stepped back a little and, with another quirk of eyebrow, they said: “You may be just what I need after all. Come on…!” And they picked up their bag, grabbed me by the hand, and towed me away towards the side of the stage.

In for a denier, in for a sou.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been backstage at a theatre. Ah. Well, imagine that smaller, louder, more frantic, and smelling like a tavern. And hungry performers.

My captor swept through this all at a rapid stomp, calling out in that confounding voice for hot water, God-dammit, soap, salt, and vinegar, for the love of tits, come on! These hand-clapping demands were met with ribaldry from some quarters and a scurrying elsewhere. They whirled me into a small, creaking room, shoved me into a sagging chair, said “Wait there!” and whirled out again, their pointing finger still aimed at me until the last minute, shrieking for white vinegar and salt, for the love of God, you lazy trollops!

I felt an eyebrow climb my forehead and let it stay there. I realised I still had a small portion of my wine left, clenched in my right hand. I downed it, put down the cup, took my hat off, ran my fingers through my hair, put it back on.

I had no idea what was about to happen, but felt that there could be no harm in being slightly more groomed to meet it.

The door crashed open and a small troop of people clomped in and out with basins and bottles, the last one with soap. Some of them stared at me, but most of them just seemed keen to get as far away as they could from the dervish yelling orders outside, and as quickly as possible.

Our commander returned, fixed me with a basilisk eye, said “You still here, then?” taking a cursed-over bundle from their bag, hanging it to drape on the gallows-like device I’d spotted earlier, and set to work on transforming it into a less stained… dress. A voluminous one at that. They pulled a well-made wooden box about a foot long out of the bag and placed it on the table nearest to me, shed their doublet and scarf, pulled off their boots and hose without ceremony, eyed me sardonically, and rolled their sleeves up.

I was getting the increasingly strong impression that this was a man stood in front of me, though, well… How do I say this delicately…?

All right, I won’t.

Was their light, rich voice the work of nature, training, or surgery? Was this a very unconventional woman, a youth not yet fully grown, a skilled performer, or a castrato? Some combination of these things?

“What are you looking at?”

I smiled tightly. “I’m admiring your handiwork.”

“Does my handiwork live in my breeches?”

“You tell me,” I responded, sharper than I’d intended. It was as if I was reflecting back part of their own character. That’s how you charm, after all. At least, how _I_ do. But this was heading a little off-kilter.

They sent a wry little moue my way. “You can make yourself helpful by applying your _expertise_ to my other problem. Get the shaving equipment,” they pointed to the box, “ready - you’re going to shave me smooth as a newborn.”

“Uh,” I found myself saying, even as I levered myself out of the chair’s sticky embrace, “shave you _where…?_ ”

They snapped a scintillating look my way. “Get everything ready. I’ll explain as I do this.”

I nodded. “Yes, captain.”

“Hilarious.” They bent their head closer to the task. I found myself a little distracted by the way their dark hair laid against the nape of their pale neck. Look, I can’t help it, I have a… a _thing_ for napes…

Where was I?

Anyway, I busied myself with laying out the shaving kit on a small table, sharpening what needed sharpening and getting a froth going. I soaked one of the towels in warm water and hung it near the small fireplace. The room became more bathhouse-like, and I removed my hat and doublet, rolled up my sleeves.

“What’s your name?”

This was not the question I was expecting.

“Henri. Henri Donadieu.”

“Well, Henri, Henri Donadieu, I’m Pierre.” His hands stayed busy on his work.

“Pleased to meet you, Pierre,”

And if part of me was somehow disappointed to have the mystery revealed, I buried it under a nod of my head and my most courteous smile.

“Onstage, though, I’m called… can you guess…?” He quirked a smirk over his shoulder.

“‘Pierrette’?”

He rolled his eyes. “Philomène. Philomène de Bien-Aimé”

“Of course,” I smiled.

“Henri,” he said to his gown, “I need you to shave me as smoothly as possible. It takes me a long time, especially since the light and mirror here are so poor and I prefer to leave it until just before I go on stage. I need to let this dry - the stain is as good as it’ll get - so you can shave me while we’re waiting for that, quicker than I can do myself, before the makeup goes on.” He sounded brisk; Constance-like, if you know what I mean. “As for where…” He pulled the hanging contraption close to the fire, shook the skirt out, and turned fully to me for the first time. He loosened the ties of his shirt, took my hand and placed my fingers against the top of his chest where a few fine, vagrant hairs curled, then swept my hand up his neck to feel the bristles under his chin, along his jawline, under his nose.

He smiled at me under my fingers and I felt my chest tighten, just a little.

He released me and I turned back to the equipment. “Take off your shirt, please,” I murmured, keeping my voice low to…

Well, if you must know, I feared it would sound a little shaky.

As his shirt came off, I revised my impressions yet again. There was muscle there - a young man’s, certainly, but definitely someone who’d passed through the great change fully, shoulders broader than I’d initially assessed, sparse hairs curling the faintest sketch of trident over his lower chest, and there was the start of a dark trail growing up below his navel.

He saw my gaze travel, took my jaw in his hand to raise it, and I felt the undeniable strength of his arm in that movement. “The costume will take care of that. But I need _this_ ,” he gestured with his free hand in a loose circle encompassing mouth and breastbone, “to be _perfect_.”

“Of course,” I said, mildly, stepping away gently to show no umbrage was intended.

He swayed slightly in my peripheral vision. “Where do you want me?”

I kept my eyes on the strop, then on testing the edge of the smaller blade gently with my thumb. “As high a seat as possible, firm, with a back if possible. Not,” I gestured over my shoulder to the sandtrap chair, “ _that_.”

He chuckled, scrabbled in the further corner, then opened the door to roar something in a language I didn’t recognise. Well, that’s not quite true. There were atoms of Italian, even Latin in it, but there were other elements in that tangled phrase that weren’t, and some of it was plain French. I shrugged it off until someone came and muttered more of what I took to be the same odd dialect under the clatter of what turned out to be a highish stool with a short back and vestigial arms. Like all the furniture in, well, any theatrical or drinking establishment, it had clearly been kicked, thrown, soaked, and generally abused for many years.

My captor said something that almost certainly wasn’t _thank you kindly_ , and the other left, closing the door. Oddly, the words had sounded like Italian and… Hebrew?, but the accent, or rather the intonation, was almost English.

He turned back to me, hauled the seat over to where I stood, and hopped into it, poised pertly with his legs crossed high and narrow like a caricature of a dainty noblewoman, hands on the highest knee, shoulders forward. I gave him a _come on, now_ look and he relaxed his pose to sit more naturally, eyeing me sideways with a quirk of mouth and eyebrow.

It occurred to me at that moment, finally, that he might be nearly as nervous as I was, covering it in his own way where I was becoming quieter, avoiding his face.

Well, obviously I couldn’t avoid his face for much longer, and, oddly, his nervousness soothed mine. You know how it is. And, besides, this humanised him, somehow.

I lifted the towel I’d prepared, still damp, now warmer, turned and moved closer to him with it draped across my palms. “Oh,” he murmured, laying himself slowly against the back of the chair, bracing himself on its short arms, “the full treatment…” and held my gaze.

I smiled slightly at him. “Do you have any teeth need pulling, monsieur?” I joshed, and he merely chuckled, rocked his head backwards, and closed his eyes.

This open trust was… it went to somewhere in me. You know how _that_ is as well, I think.

I laid the warm towel over his face and he hissed and writhed pleasurably. “Tell me,” he said, a little muffled, “I’ve always wondered - pleasant though this is, what is it for?”

“It softens the bristles, opens the skin a little,” I replied, absently, testing the second blade. “And you said you wanted close…”

“ _Perfect_ , I said. I must be shaved so smooth that my skin is flawless, shadowless. On that stage, everyone must believe me a maid.” It was fervent - he was no longer playing.

I frowned, even though he couldn’t see it. “Surely,” I said, slowly, “any makeup would cover…”

“Henri,” he said, equally slowly, but louder, “you’re not understanding - this isn’t just about what people see, underlit, through the auditorium’s smoke and flicker, it’s about the whole illusion, and for that - _I_ need to believe it.”

I wondered at this point if he was overthinking things - after all, no-one would care whether he was a woman or not. More to the point, in Chanticleer, it was becoming clear to me, they would surely want to spot the deception and enjoy that frisson.

And then I shrugged it away - my part tonight was not to question, even to understand, but to facilitate. And this I could do.

While he waited under the hot towel, I brought out the scissors and snipped delicately at the hairs that showed where I assumed the neckline of the gown would be, plus a little further by two fingers, for safety. The hair was sparse and soft enough that I felt that I could simply shave there without using the towel - and, frankly, I wanted to get the strangest part of this exercise over and done with earlier.

I warned him that it was coming, but he still writhed and chuckled a little at the touch of the soap, stilling for the blade.

As predicted, it didn’t take long, once I’d got over how the shape was unlike anything else I’d shaved. Chest done to my satisfaction, I removed the hot towel, used the end to wipe him down, hung it over my left arm, and lathered his face and under his jaw. I asked him how far he wanted to go, glad he couldn’t see my face after that slipped out. No, well he clearly didn’t think so either, chuckling and waving his hand with a flap that said: _go on_.

Cursing myself silently, I set to, pushing his head back and stretching the skin under his jaw. That’s the trickiest part to get right - on yourself or anyone else - so I wanted to get that done early. He stilled so hard as the blade approached his neck that I saw he’d stopped breathing. I didn’t speed up my strokes - he could choose to breathe or not, and he’d wanted this _perfect_.

I’ve never quite caught the trick of shaving a man from the side, so I had to lean in close, my leg between his, braced against the seat of the chair, the other along one side of him, needing to bend my knees a little in any case to get close enough and wishing to spare my back as much as possible. His skin flushed slowly in the bathhouse atmosphere, started to glisten a little. I hoped that he wouldn’t feel the sting of it too badly as I steadily cleared the stubble from his jaw, cheeks, and - swapping to the smaller blade - his top lip, all the while in silence as the backstage roared and thumped around us.

As I pressed, turned, stretched, scraped, I became increasingly aware of the way his breath came and went, shifting with every fresh angle, settling as the rhythm became familiar, hitching again as the stretch and blade travelled to a new area. He breathed well, for the most part, down low in his body, with a singer’s - or an athlete’s - depth and evenness. That was surely a singer’s voice I’d heard. I… grew to resent the silence even as I leaned into it, craving more of that voice. I began starting to think of ways to induce him to speak, even as my pressing fingers and blade made this a foolish, impractical wish.

As for him, he showed no signs of impatience or desire to speak or move beyond occasionally rolling his hips or shoulders in deliberate stretches when I moved away, and though I seemed to feel his eyes on me at all times, not once did I catch him even so much as with his eyes open, let alone looking at me.

The whole experience was meditative and maddening in the same breath.

I stepped back a little to inspect my work as a whole, easing my own muscles as I did so.

He cracked his eyes slowly open to gaze at me. “Done?”

I nodded, cleared my throat, wiping the blade absently as I tilted my head one way then the other to look him over.

“But is it _perfect?_ ” he murmured, turning his eyes up to mine.

I felt my pulse in my throat and chest thickly, strongly. I wiped my fingers, leaned in again, reached out to stroke his face. I was very pleased with how smooth his skin felt. I stroked firmly up the curve of his strong chin with the pad of my thumb, hissed to feel the tiny bristles still there. “Hold on,” I said, a little crossly.

I applied soap, a hard press to stretch him, and a slow stroke of the smallest, sharpest blade, angled to try to catch the stubborn hairs without cutting him. I forced my hand not to shake, thought of it like something surgical, and that, strangely, helped a great deal.

I wiped the soap from him and tested again. Better.

I smiled, moved a little further back. “I believe you’ll do.”

“Such faith,” he murmured, eyes hooded, “and I only have the evidence of your swordsman’s hands. Perfection needs something… more delicate…”

I frowned. “How else should I test…” My words petered out as my eyes met the challenge of his.

Ah.

His lips curved gently as he rose to sit fully upright, hands dropping into his lap, and I dipped, swallowing the tremors that ran through my chest and throat, to stroke my lips lightly along his jawline as I held his head with my left hand, maybe somewhat too firmly, fingers around the back of his neck, thumb against the hinge of his jaw. As I rounded to his chin, his head tried to dip, as I knew it would, and I heard a chuckling mutter in his throat as he found that my hand held him more straitly than he was expecting.

I didn’t want… any surrender had to be _mine_ , you understand.

I ducked, slotting one knee onto the seat between his thighs, hearing him gasp, moved my mouth to the soft, taut flesh under his jaw, over the swell of his adam’s apple, all coming up as smooth as possible. Down to his chest, feeling my heart kick at my breastbone, my breathing grow thick and shallow. Through my lips I could feel his pulse rising, the heat of his body climbing a notch.

It was all smooth. All… perfect.

I rose again, my face level with his. I propped my hands on each tiny arm of the chair, leaning into his space even as I moved my foot back to the floor. I could feel his breath on me, see his pulse, fast and strong in his throat even as he kept his face as schooled as I knew mine must be.

“Well, monsieur,” I said.

“Well?” And I was - I’ll admit it - pleased to hear the slight tremor in his voice under his insouciance.

“My job here is done, to _perfection_ , I might add, unless you require anything more of me.”

His eyes, darkening further, slipped down from mine to my mouth. He swallowed. His own lips, flushing, parted slowly, were bitten briefly, moistened by a slip of his tongue, and he muttered something that sounded like “Omi fortuni.”

Then his gaze came back up to meet mine and.

And I couldn’t wait any longer. So I made myself do so, flexing my arms to bring me a bare couple of inches closer. He straightened towards me, and now all I could see were his eyes.

“Henri?” he murmured, and my fingers tightened on the wood as his breath whispered over my lips.

“Yes, Pierre?”

“Please…” his voice descending, one eyebrow rising.

I’d misunderstood. I straightened my arms, hearing him telling me that there was no time, that I’d mistaken his playfulness, that he didn’t…

His right hand on my cheek, fingers hooking at my beard, pulling me back down, brows serious now, catching and holding my eyes, murmuring again: _please_.

Oh God. I really couldn’t wait. I… _surrendered_.

It started as tenderly as anything I could have imagined, as slow and delicate as though we had hours, days ahead of us. His hand slipped back in an echo of my earlier gesture, fingers rippling against the back of my neck, thumb pressing gently in a slow rhythm against my cheek, his lips a liquid whisper against mine.

As his tongue darted along the line of our joining I felt a moan gathering in my throat, and tilted my head to open the kiss deeper. He answered my passion in a rush of his own, his left hand going to my shoulder, then slipping down to my chest, warm and strong and clutching.

I couldn’t not touch him. It was unconscionable. Then the shock of his bare flesh against my palms was…

Oh God.

I’m sorry. I swore I’d hold nothing back, but. It’s.

Thank you. I’m finding this difficult to properly describe.

His touch crackled through me like a species of lightning. You know what it is to lay your fingers on new skin for the first time. Take that and multiply it by maybe… a dozen. He surged into my arms, his tongue going forcefully, deep into my mouth - I’d never experienced anything like it, felt my knees weaken, felt his arms clutching me to him, holding me up as my head rocked back. My eyes shot open and I stared down at him. He looked almost scared and it… it energised me. Had he been a woman, I… I would have slowed, I feel sure of it, gentled him, but I found a ferocity in me reaching out from my core to the call of his eyes and crushing him to me, tongue penetrating deep into his mouth over and again as he groaned from the pit of himself.

His fingers hooked my shirt, tugging it from my breeches. I heard something like a growl coming from my throat and I tore myself back so that I could duck past the collar and help him rip it from me. His mouth framed another “fortuni”, eyes flickering over me. I dove back to his mouth, our hands frantic across each other’s shoulders, backs, arms.

And then he brought his hand planing boldly down the front of my chest, reaching down and cupping me through my breeches, exclaiming into my mouth. I… have rarely been that hard before being touched. I felt strength bleed out through me from the chest down. I rocked - whimpering, I’ll confess it - into his palm for an aching, ragged series of moments, wanting nothing but rhythmic friction before hauling myself back, jaw clenched hard, wrenching my eyes open. I have rarely seen such naked desire on another’s face, his eyebrows rising in the middle, mouth going slack as he pulled my hand onto his chest.

I felt a moment like panic, but it was lost in the undertow of sensation as I echoed his earlier gesture, running my hand down the front of him, chest firm and smooth, his belly hard and soft together until - God save me - I cupped him frankly, felt the hard outline of his cloth-bound cock against my palm, the heat of it, the gathering momentum of his thrusts towards me. I let instinct guide me, steadying his head with my other hand, swooping to kiss the side of his neck, hearing his moans, feeling them vibrate across my increasingly raw lips as he rocked and rocked, hardening perceptibly against me. The sensation pulled my own moan from my throat and his heated mouth sought mine blindly, crushing us together, his hand in my hair, the other gripping me by the hip as his own accelerated.

The pounding of a fist on the door went through me like a blow - each knock a separate strike through my chest.

“Dewey dacha, dearie,” came the whine through the door.

“Fuck!” he spat as we sprang apart. Then the same ragged, panting word in a rapid succession of English, Italian, and German. The exercise seemed to calm him, his breathing controlled in very short order, but he looked at me sidelong with an expression somewhere between wry, desperate, and resigned. “Twenty minutes, that is, soldier. I must transform myself - omi to polone, man to woman, you understand, and it must be…”

“Perfetto,” I finished, still a little breathless myself, trying for a smile through clenched teeth. My hands fisted behind my back.

“Esattamente.” He grinned at me, quirked an eyebrow, jaw somewhat stiff still. He started to shuck his breeches and I schooled myself to look him in the face. “Do you want to watch?”

“I’m almost afraid to,” I confessed.

His eyes narrowed above a smile becoming a little arch, standing there in only his braies, and my spirit quailed back from it - he was shutting himself away from me and… I felt it like a loss.

I hastened to explain: “There are some mysteries that are almost… holy, and this transformation is one of them, I think. Also:” and my mouth twisted, rueful, “I worry that the sight of you as a woman would inflame me too much to allow either of us to leave this room easily.”

“You, monsieur, have a great opinion of your powers of persuasion,” he returned, but his colour had mounted, chest to neck, in a great rush again.

“I shall sit here,” I decided, sinking into the sandpit chair, wiggling my fingers in the air, “my hands pinioned,” and I pushed them under my thighs. I could not yet leave them in my lap, you understand.

He watched me for a moment he surely could not afford, mouth pursing thoughtfully. “That’s a shame. I’d hoped you’d lend those arms to binding me into shape…”

“I am yours to command,” I said, and we both coloured at that, I swear, in synchrony. I rose again into the heat of the room, the heat of him.

I tell you, brother, that undressing women is nothing like as difficult as dressing them. Especially when you have committed yourself to impartial assistance. Nothing over the intervening years has changed my mind on that score. I lent my main strength to wrestling the corsetry into shape after I’d helped him with his hose and shoes. I suspect that part was not… strictly necessary to saving time, as he spent more time watching me kneel before him than applying his makeup. He drenched himself (and not a little of me) in powder while I was still on my knees, however, blotting it skillfully as I laced him “not _too_ tight, soldier!” before applying the paint and then directing me to gather the gown over my hands so that I could draw it down over him without smudging anything. He added a wonderful wig that I would have sworn was his own hair had I not seen it sitting on a blank-faced bust not two minutes beforehand. I finally understood why his hair was cropped so fever-short.

He plunged his hands one after the other beneath the neckline of the gown and wrenched his flesh into something very like a modest decolleté. And now my mind was in a thorough whirl. Although I’d watched almost every moment of the transformation, knew what was padding and what was paint, I couldn’t quite shake the impression that here was a woman. And not a bawdy, theatrical dame, all wobbly false bosoms and overblown lips, but a _real_ woman.

I’m not telling this very well. I mean more respect than I’m portraying here.

What I mean to say, I think, is that I met Philomène then, and it was, in that moment, as if Pierre had been the costume. That husky contralto captured and confounded me all over again through warm-up exercises as I rinsed, dried, and packed away the barber’s tools.

The singing stopped and I looked over. Standing before the glass, those artfully painted, dark-drowning eyes regarded me, gleaming in the poor light, turned towards the powder-pale shoulder, then back to that exquisite reflection.

He… she? ran slender, beringed fingers lightly over the subtle planes of that smooth right cheek, smirked up at me over her… his…? their shoulder in the glass. “It seems that I’m in your debt.”

I frowned, shaking my head. “There should be no talk of owing between us.”

“Nonetheless.”

And Philomène turned in a rustle of cloth and scent, laid a hand on my still-bare chest, gazed up at me, and murmured: “Nonetheless, monsieur, you must allow me to offer you something for your kindness.”

My breath stuttered in my chest all over again, blood thundering through me, and I felt myself growing hard again in a rush. She offered up a small smile at what must have looked like my obvious confusion and desire.

But here’s the thing - I wasn’t confused, not any more. I wanted… I wanted all of what was in front of me - paint, powder, clean sweat, strength and softness, smooth, cool fingers and, God help me, hard, heated thrusts… I wanted that supple mouth on me, everywhere, and to return the worship any way that she would take it. I wanted to hear that voice cry out his rise and fall, his own surrender. To me.

And.

I took that hand in mine and bent over it, brushing it with my lips, murmuring: “I fear…” She raised my chin with her other hand, an imperious demand in her eyes. I smiled. “I fear there is no time for even the smallest part of what I would exchange with you in kindness. And besides,” I went on, adding an upward twist to my expression, “I would hate to ruin that perfect makeup.”

“Ohhh,” she murmured, “I’m sure they’d wait…” but she was backing, turning even as she spoke, to call back to the insistence at the door: “One minute, I pray you!”

“Stay,” she said to me. “Stay and see the show.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I began to gather my clothes, gathering her chagrin to me like a caress, tucking myself in as best I could, not daring to undo my points - I had the strongest image of taking myself in hand, crashing to my knees, panting, roaring as I spent myself in short order.

Jaw clenched so hard against this that my ears rang, I slotted my hat back on my head and gave her full courtesy. “Madame de Bien-Aimé.”

She rustled into as deep a courtesy herself. “Monsieur Donadieu,” with a twinkle. She sailed to and through the door and I thanked God she hadn’t laid her hands on me again just then.

I don’t think I could have borne it. And we would never have left that room.

*  *  *

Aramis’s voice fades out and his gaze is far away. The only sound is the wind and the hiss and snap of the fire.

“So, er,” says Porthos cautiously, “is that it?”

“Well,” says Aramis, “you asked about kisses, and I already told you more than I planned. We have to retain some mysteries, do we not?”

His lips shape a few, silent words.

Porthos clears his throat. “You know what it means, don’t you?”

“Hmm? What what means, my friend?”

He hesitates. “‘Fortuni’.”

Aramis frowns. “You know this?”

“English thieves and circus folk use the cant, among others…” he tails off, swallows.

“So…” says Aramis, eyebrows high, and Porthos, committed, knows he’s going to have to tell him, wonders how Aramis, of all people, could have missed any opportunity over the last six years to learn what a word meant.

He clears his throat again. “Means: ‘beautiful’.”

“How,” says Aramis, meeting his eyes again at last with a species of delight, “could you _possibly_ know _that?_ ”

“Englishman lived in the Court of Miracles for a year or so. He was Romani, among other things. Liked to say his people were kin to pharaohs or somesuch. One of the best thieves I’ve ever met - gifted, he was.”

“Taught you much?” asks Aramis, lightly.

“Enough. Good with a knife too. Anyway,” he scratches the back of his neck, “that’s what it is.”

“Fortuni,” murmurs Aramis, caressing the word idly, and Porthos curses himself - Aramis had surely discovered the meaning by now. _Omi fortuni_. Beautiful man.

He sniffs, stretches his shoulders, half-watches Aramis through his eyelashes. Aramis’s eyes are lost under the brim of his hat again.

“I believe,” says his brother, slowly, “that it’s your turn now.”

“Ah. Yeah.” He scratches his neck. “If you’d still like…”

“Oh, please.”

“So,” he coughs, “which is it to be?” Aramis’s eyes widen. “You, er, you said you’d choose.”

“Ah, yes,” and he grins slowly, letting memory bloom. Porthos steels himself. “You said you’d experienced climax without direct touch…”

Fuck. “Yes.”

“Well, go on, then.”

He rallies. “You want me to…” with a raise of his eyebrows, takes a small delight in Aramis colouring.

“Just tell me the story,” he replies, rather shortly.

“All right then… but it won’t be poetical.”

“But it will be true.” Some of the poet’s dreaming tone is back.

“That it will.” He takes a deep breath. “All right. You know the new swordmaster…?”

Aramis’s eyebrow rises, silent and swift into his hair.

“Not like _that_. Ugh. Okay, here’s how it is…”

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, simple one-shot. Somehow it ended up longer than my first, chaptered work, _[Keep Your Friends Close](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679385)_ , by a few hundred words. I am garrulous. [shakes head] I choose to believe this is down to what one of my favourite Musketeers smut writers, [breathtaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken), memorably described as “[Aramis-flavoured scope creep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013354/)”…
> 
> Basically, it’s all Aramis’s fault. [nods]
> 
> The other language scattered throughout is [Polari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari), a mishmash, secret dialect used by all sorts of [hidden people](http://www.chris-d.net/polari/) for many centuries across Europe (though mostly in Britain, apparently).


End file.
